118 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



crop, and for no other reason ; but he did not dare take the 

 risk again. But, as I was remarking, I think the gentleman 

 will not deny that he said it exhausted the pocket. 



Mr. Chamberlain. I said it exhausted the pocket. I 

 would not be understood as saying it exhausted the farm 

 itself. 



Mr. Webb. And he is right. 



Mr. Wetherell. I should expect that from the gentle- 

 man who endorses it. I want to say in answer to that, that 

 I do not know of any business in which a man was ever 

 engaged, whether mercantile or farming, where the pocket 

 has not been, at times, exhausted. Tobacco is not the only 

 crop that does it. I think that is a false issue. Therefore I 

 believe in leaving the farmer alone to select that crop which 

 he thinks best for his farm. I think a farmer who selects 

 that crop because it is best, if he uses the same economy in 

 growing that crop, that he would if carrying on other branches 

 of farming, will be successful. I do not know how it is in 

 your State, but I have known a good many men, who, finding 

 the growing of tobacco an exceedingly profitable business, 

 bought horses and carriages, and indulged in all sorts of 

 extravagances, and failed because of that, not because tobacco 

 raising was unprofitable ; tobacco was simply the incident 

 that led to it. I was employed by a gentlemen a few years 

 ago to go through the Connecticut valley in Massachusetts to 

 ascertain the best and most successful methods of growing 

 this crop. I visited the best and most experienced farmers in 

 that section, and I prepared a manual that was published on 

 that subject ; I will relate one fact in connection with that 

 matter, and that will end what I have to say now. The 

 manual was considered a success. Well, at a meeting at 

 Northampton of the Hampshire and Hampden Agricultural 

 Society, one of the Northampton farmers took occasion to say, 

 wanting to hit some of the agricultural writers whom he saw 

 at the reporter's table, that agricultural writers wrote a great 

 deal that they did not know anything about. I replied to this 

 gentleman by saying, " You have just remarked that such and 



